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A group of hackers claims it has able to access to over 300 million Apple (iCloud) email accounts — and they are saying that they're ready and willingly determined to wipe the user data from hundreds of millions of hacked iCloud accounts if Apple won't pay up by April 7.
The group, which is calling itself and claim themselves as the Turkish Crime Family, demanded a $75,000 ransom in either Bitcoin or Ethereum, another form of online currency, to delete the data, reports Motherboard. The site ruined the story Tuesday morning after corresponding with multiple people online claiming to represent the group, which will also settle for $100,000 worth of iTunes gift cards as payment.
The members of Turkish Crime Family provided Motherboard videos, screenshots of emails and access to an email account allegedly used to correspond with Apple's security team to make provable their claims. Reps from Apple flatly denied the group's request just before threatening to forward the information to the authorities, as according to the report.
The video already shared in the email, which was uploaded to a YouTube Channel, reportedly shows the group scrolling through multiple stolen iCloud accounts. This was the only proof provided to Motherboard of the cache's existence.
A Twitter handles claiming to correspond to the group popped up shortly after Motherboard's report went live. As of this article's publication, the account has been utilized to reiterate the group's threats and retweet news coverage.
The group has since made itself available to the media and press via a direct email account, which was also shared proudly with the world via tweeting. It's story isn't exactly consistent yet, though: one rep told Motherboard that it has cached around 300 million accounts, but another estimated saying they had access to 559 million email accounts.
Meanwhile, the Turkish Crime Family Twitter handle is capping the number of iCloud accounts that will be affected in an attack at 200 million account respectively. Cyber attacks on our personal data storage systems are not a joke — and iCloud has experienced wide scale of the breaches before, most notably in 2014 when multiple celebrity accounts were accessed and personal photos were shared at online. In that instance, the security issues stemmed from the iCloud accounts' weak personal safety settings rather than any flaws in Apple's system.
The Turkish Crime Family hasn't provided any insight yet into how it claims that they have hijacked the millions accounts, so we're so cautious to accept their claims at face value — especially since the group doesn't seem to have its own story straightly. Even though it provided Motherboard any alleged communications with Apple and a video, that doesn't prove that it has the ability to follow through on its threats.
This may well be little more than an overblown stunt rather than truthfulness, unless the group has come forward with some more proof.
